Canadian government: 'We want to unbundle television channels'

yes, but you have to admit the momentum to relax media ownership regulations pretty much got a green light because of how people responded to the AT&T breakup...it's convoluted, but it was the start of a bad thing. People thought, "oh, the government has done us a real solid..keep going"
Which they did, of course, on multiple levels.

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The first was a court-ordered response, 8 years later, to a Justice Department antitrust suit.

The relaxation of broadcast ownership restrictions was instigated by Congress.

You guys seem to think ESPN etc costs so much money and if we stopped bundling then we each would have to pay a small fortune for our ESPN.

The truth is, ESPN *has* so much money because of bundling, which allows them to overpay for sports programming to buy it away from networks. The glut of money available to these networks drives up the prices the owners can sell coverage of the events for.

If you made people pay individually for sports channels, you'd see the prices drop in to massive decline, reducing revenues for networks and schools along the way. Because no one is paying 10 dollars a month for the Big 10 channel. At least, not enough people to keep it going. But TW can stick it on your cable lineup, raise prices by 3 per subscriber, and no one even notices and some number of people love it and TW therefore loves it.

So, don't blame me, the sports fan, for the prices you pay for cable TV. Blame bundling. Our prices would not be that high if you split our channels out from yours.

That's not the question we're looking for. We're talking about channels that would fold if tv became "unbundled".

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The smaller networks. The larger networks with a huge catalog of shows people watch will survive - the weaker channels will just get more of those hit shows (so you watch Mythbusters on one channel, Deadliest Catch on another, etc. etc. etc, so to watch your favorite Discovery shows, you've now had to purchase all 5 or 6 channels. Ditto History).

Then again, the major telecommunications companies own the channels anyways, so all that's going to happen is everyone's rates go up - internet, TV, phone, etc. (And internet rates go up the fastest). Yes, in Canada, the telecommunications companies have gone vertical and own the entire stack -the channels, the distribution networks and the final mile. Between Rogers, Bell, Telus and Shaw, that's pretty much the entirety of Canadian TV.

There are a few smaller independent channels, but those are generally already OTA.

In the end, it's really just a distraction created by the Harper Government (our PM renamed the Government of Canada) to try to draw attention away from various scandals. He already shut down the government for a month to hope it would blow over. By the time it actually gets around to being passed, the big guys would've contributed significant money to the CRTC to ensure it's watered down as heck.

If anyone asks in the US - keep the content producers (channels and stations) away from the big distribution networks. Otherwise you're not going to get much if it turns out 99% of your channels are coming from the likes of Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T and other telecommunications firms.

The smaller networks. The larger networks with a huge catalog of shows people watch will survive - the weaker channels will just get more of those hit shows (so you watch Mythbusters on one channel, Deadliest Catch on another, etc. etc. etc, so to watch your favorite Discovery shows, you've now had to purchase all 5 or 6 channels. Ditto History).

Then again, the major telecommunications companies own the channels anyways, so all that's going to happen is everyone's rates go up - internet, TV, phone, etc. (And internet rates go up the fastest). Yes, in Canada, the telecommunications companies have gone vertical and own the entire stack -the channels, the distribution networks and the final mile. Between Rogers, Bell, Telus and Shaw, that's pretty much the entirety of Canadian TV.

There are a few smaller independent channels, but those are generally already OTA.

In the end, it's really just a distraction created by the Harper Government (our PM renamed the Government of Canada) to try to draw attention away from various scandals. He already shut down the government for a month to hope it would blow over. By the time it actually gets around to being passed, the big guys would've contributed significant money to the CRTC to ensure it's watered down as heck.

If anyone asks in the US - keep the content producers (channels and stations) away from the big distribution networks. Otherwise you're not going to get much if it turns out 99% of your channels are coming from the likes of Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T and other telecommunications firms.

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Pretty much dead-on correct on every point. Don't forget owning the 'sports' stack as well, as Bell & Rogers do now with their joint ownership of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. Now that they control the buildings where events are held, and who can play in them, or who can't (Argos), they can change culture.

If Moses Znaimer tried to create CityTV in today's atmosphere, could he even get it off the ground?

There needs to be some avenue to ensure that minority, small-numbers or niche content creators/providers have a fair platform to be heard, as there will always be a small audience of viewers who want that programming as opposed to what the "masses" are digesting.

Telecommunications CAN'T be run from the archaic attitude of "only the strong survive - isn't that what capitalism is" mentality, as it's exclusionary at its core.

Content is 'King' they say, but as we know all to well, the Royal Family keeps things pretty closed-off to newcomers....and isn't that how America came to be in the first place?